Friday, 13 February 2015

Red Eagle suing Robert Jordan's widow

Red Eagle Entertainment, producers of the widely-panned Wheel of Time "pilot" informercial, have decided to alienate the few remaining Wheel of Time fans who didn't despise them by suing Robert Jordan's widow for 'slander'. The text of their complaint in full:

Law360, San Diego (February 12, 2015, 8:08 PM ET) -- The producers of a
TV adaptation of Robert Jordan’s “Wheel of Time” fantasy book series
accused the author’s widow of slander on Thursday in California federal
court, alleging she publicly ridiculed the pilot that aired days before
the producers’ rights were set to expire.

Red Eagle Entertainment
LLC’s 30-minute pilot for the series aired on FXX in the early hours of
Feb. 9, at 1:30 a.m. EST, and was quickly derided by fans and writers
for its low-budget special effects, slow pacing and stilted acting. Red
Eagle’s rights to the series would have expired on Feb. 11 if it hadn’t
aired anything.

Jordan’s widow Harriet McDougal released a
statement Monday distancing herself from the pilot. She claimed that her
company Bandersnatch Group Inc., which is Jordan’s successor in
interest, had a deal with Universal Pictures to produce the show, not
Red Eagle.

“I see no mention of Universal in the ‘pilot,’” she
wrote. “Nor, I repeat, was Bandersnatch, or Robert Jordan's estate,
informed of this in any way. I am dumbfounded by this occurrence, and am
taking steps to prevent its reoccurrence.”

Red Eagle alleges
that it granted some rights to Universal but they reverted back to Red
Eagle last year. McDougal knew Universal was no longer involved because
she and her lawyers were told about the rights change, according to the
suit. Her statement was meant to disparage the show and cast doubt on
Red Eagle’s legal ability to produce the pilot, the company alleged.

“Instead
of confirming the rights for which she has been so richly compensated
for, McDougal sought to harm the business prospects of [Red Eagle] by
making statements she knew to be false,” Red Eagle said.

Red
Eagle’s dealing with Jordan dates back to 2004, when a subsidiary paid
Jordan $35,000 for a one-year option to buy movie and TV rights for the
first of 15 books in the “Wheel of Time” series. The company eventually
paid another $595,000 to extend the option and buy the rights, which
would revert back to Bandersnatch if nothing came of the deal, according
to the complaint.

The subsidiary, Manetheren LLC, signed a
separate deal with Universal in 2009, giving it an interest in making
films or a TV show based on the book, but the rights came back to
Manetheren in February 2014 because Universal hadn’t started shooting by
then, the complaint said.

McDougal was invited last year to a
series of meetings between Manetheren, Sony Pictures Television and
Radar Pictures LLC about a possible TV series and offered to serve as a
consultant, according to the suit. Red Eagle claims McDougal never
raised any concerns about Manetheren’s rights to go ahead with the show.

Manetheren
further claims McDougal breached a 2008 deal over comic book rights,
with both sides agreeing not to make any negative or contentious public
statements about each other. And contrary to McDougal’s released
statement, Manetheren was not required to get her approval before
releasing the show, the producers said.

Representatives for the parties did not immediately respond Thursday to requests for comment.

The
case is Red Eagle Entertainment LLC et al. v. Bandersnatch Group Inc.
et al., case number 2:15-cv-01038, in the U.S. District Court for the
Central District of California.

What Harriet McDougal actually said:

"This morning brought startling
news. A “pilot” for a Wheel of Time series, the "pilot" being called
Winter Dragon, had appeared at 1:30 in the morning, East Coast time, on
FXX TV, a channel somewhere in the 700s (founded to concentrate on
comedy, according to the Washington Post).

It was made without my
knowledge or cooperation. I never saw the script. No one associated
with Bandersnatch Group, the successor-in-interest to James O. Rigney,
was aware of this.

Bandersnatch has an existing contract with
Universal Pictures that grants television rights to them until this
Wednesday, February 11 – at which point these rights revert to
Bandersnatch.

I see no mention of Universal in the “pilot”. Nor, I
repeat, was Bandersnatch, or Robert Jordan’s estate, informed of this
in any way.

I am dumbfounded by this occurrence, and am taking steps to prevent its reoccurrence."

Wow.

Some interesting points to extract from this:

Red Eagle's 2004 deal was for The Eye of the World alone, not the entire series. The later extension to $595,000 does not state if the entire series was included in the deal, especially interesting given that at the time only ten (of fifteen) novels were available. $600,000 seems a rather low price to pay for a series that by then had already chalked up three #1 New York Times bestsellers and had already sold over 40 million copies in the United States alone, which suggests that the rights may not have been for the full series (or Robert Jordan was feeling extremely generous). If Red Eagle only own the rights for the first book, or even the first few, then the chances of them getting the whole series made would seem to be very slim given that Bandersnatch are (especially after the events of this week) highly unlikely to ever sell them the remainder.

This revelation does confirm that Red Eagle made at least a $405,000 profit by re-selling the rights to Universal. They did this in 2008 for a reported "seven figure" deal. If that deal was for a few million, then Red Eagle's profit would have been substantially greater.

The news does also confirm that Sony Pictures were interested in taking on the project. Given that Sony's best-known recent TV project was Breaking Bad, which they exerted considerable influence over and reportedly protected from the kind of executive meddling at AMC that had caused problems on its other dramas, this at least shows that Red Eagle was dealing with the big leagues. There are no indications if Sony remain interested in the project.

4 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Well, I guess the good news is both sides seem willing to come to some sort of conclusion instead of not doing much like the past years have been. I don't see how REE has much of a case on slander, but I'm assuming the endgame is to settle out of court in some manner so both parties can move on from here on out.

I can't stand REE. They've had years to do something with this property and all they've actually produced is a failed comic. They had their chance, and now they need to just go away and let someone else who is more competent and has more respect for the series have a go.